About us · Since 1998
A shop built by people who couldn't stop playing.
Two floors at Bras Basah Complex, one repair bench, three teaching rooms and a jam night nobody can quite remember starting.
The story
It started with one wall of second-hand guitars.
In 1998, Peter Tan was a session guitarist who kept fixing his friends' instruments on his kitchen table. When the table stopped being big enough, he took a small unit at Bras Basah Complex, hung up a dozen second-hand guitars and put a repair bench at the back.
Twenty-eight years later the bench is still at the back — it's just that the shop grew around it. His daughter Rachel runs the floor, the teaching rooms opened upstairs in 2009, and roughly 12,000 instruments have left through the front door.
What hasn't changed: nobody here works on commission. If the cheaper guitar is the better guitar for you, that's what we'll say. If your instrument isn't worth repairing, we'll tell you that too — and we'd rather you came back in five years than spent badly today.
12,000
Instruments sold since 1998
Every one of them left this shop set up by hand, and a good number have come back for a service since.
We still recognise the guitars. Sometimes we recognise them before we recognise the owner.
What we believe
Four rules we haven't broken yet.
No commission, ever
Nobody earns more by selling you the expensive one.
Set up before sold
An instrument that fights you will end up under a bed.
Beginners get the time
First-timers get the same hour as the pros. Often more.
The community comes back
Monthly jam night, open mic, and a noticeboard for bands.
Come in, play something, stay a while.
Walk in and try anything on the wall. No appointment, no pressure.